


chasing visions of our future

by serendipityful (staircase_wit)



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-11
Updated: 2014-04-11
Packaged: 2018-01-19 00:04:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1447954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staircase_wit/pseuds/serendipityful
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Britta Perry tries to adjust to adult life. And fails.</p>
            </blockquote>





	chasing visions of our future

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this in a rush, so there's bound to be grammatical errors and awkward wording. If something sounds iffy, just tell me!

To be honest, Britta didn’t know what to expect coming out of a community college that could’ve passed for a madhouse with a Psych degree that took her an extra semester and too many lost hours of sleep.  
She could tell you that she expected finding a job. She’d even taken a page out of Annie’s book and tried her hand at planning the next five years. An internship here, a couple years there, then soon enough Dr. Perry would have her very own clinic and be saving the world one client at a time. She’d even dyed her hair brown just to see if that would get rid of the “dumb blonde” image.  
Her current position as barkeep at a very sketchily named High Spirits was a good barometer of the success of that particular scheme.  
“So, tell me more,” she’d urge tipsy patrons every once in a while. The happy juice tended to make them more willing to spill out their thoughts and Britta’s desperation (though, she insisted, it was just a keen interest because no way was she desperate) was a perfect match for that. “How do you feel about this?”  
She was probably violating some sort of unspoken law of privacy by counseling people who should’ve known better than to open up to her. But then again, people were drinking shots off her torso every Tuesday. Moralism wasn’t too high on her agenda. 

Every Saturday, she found herself visiting her family. Never her parents, but still … family. When she realized what a pattern’s she made out of it, a sudden rush of fear swept through her bones. She was pushing thirty-three now. God, she was old, an adult pretty much. From the sheer terror of it, Britta willed the thought away just as quickly as it came.  
Her older brother would always rattle on and on about the kids at the school he worked at. He’d sit in his typical, middle-class futon in his typical, middle-class suburban living room in his typical, middle-class suburban home and just wax poetic about what Susie This or Johnny That did today. And Britta would listen and she would never admit it, but with every story about Susie and Johnny, a pang of envy would hit from inside her. How her boring, conservative, always respectable older brother ended up doing more good in the field of psychology than she did, she would never know.  
There was also the awkward matter of seeing her niece and nephew. Nicole had caught her smoking pot in the bathroom leading to the worst-crafted lie of she’d ever told a ten-year-old. So much for being the “cool aunt.” And for some odd, unexplainable reason, Marcus had taken to avoiding her.  
And her brother’s annoyingly perfect homemaker wife would ask Britta how her life was, specifically regarding the romantic aspects. For the first month, Britta told the truth. And then she got tired of seeing that same pitiful look on her sister-in-law’s face. And for some reason, whatever it was, she felt a tad too ashamed to ask why a woman couldn't, God forbid, live life without having a man at the moment. Because as much as she believed that was true, Britta couldn't bring herself to look at annoying perfect homemaker wife's saucer-wide blue eyes, so full of hope and stupidity, and tell her that. That was how Clyde came about. Clyde, the non-existent boyfriend that was so well-suited for her non-existent adult life, who was always too busy to visit because he was a learned doctor always travelling to third-world countries to cure cleft palates. But once he’d finish saving the world, then he would definitely come back and settle down with Britta and they’d get married and buy a disgusting house with a picket fence and have 2.5 icky little babies. Sure. 

But her social life actually was that level of stagnant to warrant the creation of fake lovers. She’d only met up with the study group a couple of times since graduation. Having the people that always told her she’d never be a good psychiatrist find out that she’d resorted to being a bartender wasn’t exactly high on her Wish List.  
And apart from them, who else did she have? None of her anherchists friends were still active. It wasn’t like she could go dye her hair an unflattering color and jump into some new group. Besides, as society always loved to remind her, she was a woman in her thirties and with that came expectations.  
And the men were everything that she expected men to be. Spending every night seeing lecherous scotch-drinkers ogle all the women in the bar did not help her perception of the male population. Eventually she’d earned the reputation of Bitch-Faced-Bartender-Always-Whining-About-Something-Called-the-Patriarchy. Britta didn’t think it was meant to be a compliment, nevertheless she wore that badge with pride. So much to the extent that she actually did make herself a little physical fabric badge for it to stick onto her denim jacket before deciding, approximately five seconds later, it was too embarrassing to be seen in public.  
There were nights she thought of the string of hearts that led her to where she was. Whenever she looked into the bathroom mirror, she found herself thinking of Troy. Of how young he was and how full of optimism and hope he was, so much to the point of naivete. And in those moments of restlessness, she was reminded of Vaughn. The smell of sweat and hemp and everything misguided about her youth. With a shudder, she turned her mind on those thoughts. Some things were better left buried.  
And in the quiet, sleepless nights, of staggering into her apartment at three, completely sober yet so exhausted, of coming home from yet another day of disappointment and disillusionment, Britta let herself think about Jeff. She let the thought of him roll deep in her mind, savoring it like a child to a lollipop. It didn’t seem so bad now. But now, as she would remind herself after every little insomniac daydream, was far, far too late for any regrets.

Greendale calls her back because it’s in trouble. She sees the clothes strewn about her apartment, she sees her answering machine with five unread messages all from her brother and his annoyingly perfect wife, she sees the key to the bar hanging on a hook next to her front door.  
And without hesitation, she goes.


End file.
